Connected apps twice as popular on iOS than Android

Symbian trails painfully behind

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Apple - winning the connected app race

New data from the GSMA shows that UK iOS users are using far more internet-connected apps than any other operating system.

By monitoring app data requests using a bespoke Mobile Media Metrics application, the GSMA discovered that iOS users accounted for 65 per cent of the total number of unique connections through an app in April, while Android trails behind with 31 per cent.

This means that twice as many iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch users are using apps that connect to the internet, like Google Maps, weather and news apps, than the plethora of Android users.

Trailing behind

Symbian offers just one per cent of connected app users, while all other OSes (BlackBerry, Windows Phone, WebOS etc) put together make up the final three per cent.

As the Guardian points out, RIM's stringent security measures may have put BlackBerry devices at a disadvantage; we'd have expected higher stats from handsets that are renowned for instant messaging.

Still, it's an illuminating set of results, given that one of the major drivers behind apps was to partition the web for mobile use. It's not surprising to see Apple, the godfather of the application revolution, at the top of the tree; but what is surprising is that fact that it's up by so much.

With Android proving massive in terms of volume of sales (accounting for 45 per cent of all smartphone sales in the UK), it's seems strange that so few of its users and putting connected apps to good use.